


Salt Ghosts, Sea Shanties: An Adventure Story

by TBGkaru (Karukara), Vrunka



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pirate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-10-27 01:32:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karukara/pseuds/TBGkaru, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: Jesse McCree, Prince of the Sea, pirate with a heart of gold. He's never needed anything else. He's never wanted for more. Until his Captain and his crew take on a new recruit and everything in Jesse's life gets capsized.





	1. Captive

**Author's Note:**

> Commission and collaboration with the AMAZING Karukara! Hope you like pirates and angst everybody!

The sea air is stale down here. Too dank and cool without the breeze that the deck gets. Claustrophobic.

Jesse holds the lantern up.

From the cell in front of him a figure moves. Sits up. Green hair, brown eyes. Frowning.

The captive prince, unamused.

He squints against the light and Jesse places the lantern down before approaching the bars. He shifts the crock of stew he brought, one-handed, and produces an orange with the other.

He holds both by his hips.

"How are you doing," Jesse asks, grinning at the way the prince's eyes roll. The flat look he gets in return.

"Hungry," the prince says. "You're late." He motions toward the stew bowl. Impatient. Jesse maneuvers the bowl between the bars.

The remaining baubles on the prince's clothes jingle and clink as he grabs for the bowl. Like Jesse would deny him it now that he has brought it down. Little shows of desperation. Little tells beneath the veneer.

Rotting away like his fine silks down here in the dark.

"Genji--"

"Your highness," Genji corrects with his mouth full. He swallows. The is a lump of crab stuck to his chin, he swipes at it with his thumb, sucks it greedily into his mouth. "The least you can do is show some respect, Sea Prince."

Sea Prince. Jesse isn't personally fond of the nickname. But Gabriel has done a good job of owning it, so it's the least he can do to play along.

And Genji has a point.

Genji is royalty. Real royalty. More than silk and fancy airs and titles and wealth. There is something undefinable about it.

How he can seem regal even standing in a filthy, dark cell. Genji lifts the bowl to his mouth once more, slurps down what Jesse assumes is the last of it.

"Taste good," Jesse asks as Genji wipes once more at his mouth to catch the escaped bits of food.

Genji sneers. His rings glitter and glint in the lantern light. "Middling," he says, pushing the bowl back through the bars for Jesse to take. "A step above gruel. I've come to expect no better in this place. It's no wonder you're all so skinny."

Hog would be offended, Jesse lets the poorly aimed blow roll off him. The food is a good as one could hope for while at sea. Mako does his best.

Jesse rolls the orange between his palms. Watches Genji watching it. He already knows the prince will not ask for it. Too stubborn. Too willful.

Jesse slips his hand between the bars, offers the fruit up. Like someone would to an animal at one of the royal zoos. The thought clenches in his stomach, tightens his throat. He hates that they have to do this like this.

But Genji and Hanzo have left them little other choice.

Genji looks down at his hands, then back at the orange. Jesse can see from here the dirt under the prince's nails, the smudges of mold on his fingertips from prying at the moist ship boards. His expression falters.

The boy within the prince.

Just the barest hint of hesitance.

"Want me to peel it for you, your Highness?" Jesse says. The words have left his mouth before he's even considered them.

Genji's eyes flash and Jesse has time just enough to think of Faust and his broken elbow before Genji's hand is around his wrist.

The caked dirt flaking against Jesse's skin.

But he doesn't break Jesse's arm like he did with Faust and he isn't frowning or looking all wild like he had then either. He is grinning, almost coy. His thumb follows up the line of Jesse's pinkie.

"Alright," he says, leaning close to the bars.

Jesse mirrors the motion. It is safe to, the keys to the cell are with Gabe, no one else has a copy. Genji's opposite hand wraps around the bars of his cell. Salt crust and moisture. His nice clothes are stiff with it. The headscarf Genji had worn when they took him has already rotted to nothing after so many days at sea. The remainder of it lies a ghost of pale fabric in the corner of the cell.

Jesse peels the orange and pretends that his hands aren't shaking as he does. As he strips the rind away the fresh smell of citrus and brightness and summer coils up from the fruit.

Jesse always appreciates the smell while at sea but it seems to have an even greater effect on Genji. He leans toward it, eyes closed. His nostrils flare.

"You know," Jesse says, separating a slice of orange and holding it toward Genji, "we don't want to keep you down here."

Genji's eyes open. A crease in the center of his brows. They have talked about this several times, but Jesse feels the need to do so again. To explain it until Genji gets it.

"We ain't tryin' to," Jesse says. He pauses when Genji takes the orange with his teeth. His lips brush against Jesse's fingers and everything he was saying stalls. The words evaporate like water on deck in the hot sun. Genji chews, licks his lips, leans in for a second slice. Chest pressed against the bars.

"You could just let me go," Genji says. "Save the lot of us a lot of grief." His breath smells like orange, almost sickly sweet this close. "Save yourselves that is, since Hanzo is going to kill you all when he finds you."

"Like he killed Jack?"

Genji chews a second orange slice, juice and spit left on Jesse's fingertips. Genji swallows. "I don't know anything about that," he says. "I want to go home."

"It just ain't gonna happen, darlin'. Not until your brother starts cooperatin'. Not until you do." Jesse holds out another slice.

The meat of the fruit is pale and orange in the lantern light.

Genji's lips slide over Jesse's fingertips. His breath is moist on Jesse's palm. His eyes are hooded.

When he bites down, he bites down hard and Jesse really is only half expecting it.

Jesse pulls his hand back with a hiss. The top knuckle of his pointer finger throbs. Little waves of sharp pain. The skin isn't broken, but it will probably bruise.

The slice of orange lies on the floor just outside the cell, leaking juice into the hardwood.

Genji is grinning. He wipes his chin with the heel of his palm. Licks the excess juice off with a showy little wink.

Jesse's fingers curl at his sides. He looks away.

"Done so soon, Sea Prince," Genji says. Jesse doesn't need to see the head tilt to hear the upswing of it in Genji's voice. The triumphant smug innocence there.

"You ain't gonna listen anyway."

"True, I guess, but I am starting to value these little talks of ours," Genji says. His voice moves and when Jesse looks back over, Genji has returned to the crude cot the crew put up for him in the corner opposite the latrine.

Dismissal. Genji lays down, turns on his side.

Jesse lays the remainder of the orange just inside the bars. Sitting on the peel.

He takes the lantern with him when he goes. He pretends he doesn't hear Genji's quiet noise of dissent when he does.

God oh God why does it have to be like this?

\--

He's talking to Ana when Gabriel finds him later.

The King of the Sea, he carries himself with the same sort of air that Genji does. A pride in the way he holds his shoulders.

"Come on down, kid," Gabe says, crossing his arms.

It must be important.

Gabriel rarely bothers Jesse when he is out here, laying as far out on the bowsprit as he can get, with only the ropes and thin wood keeping him from crushing, rolling depths of the sea.

Jesse cranes his neck to give one last look to the carving of the woman beneath him, squeezes the polished wood of the bowsprit in a silent, hopeful goodbye. He stands, balances without grabbing the ropes and picks his way back to the deck proper.

Gabriel watches him. Silent. Frowning.

But Jesse is used to this. One doesn't garner a reputation as the best pirate by being chipper. Besides, smiling was more Jack's thing and that's...a tricky sort of subject at the moment.

"Sorry," Jesse says as he lands, cat-like, on his feet next to Gabe. "I was just..." He looks over his shoulder then back to Gabe and shrugs.

"Yeah," Gabe says. "I know. She answer?"

There is no jest in his question, no teasing heat. Gabriel wants to believe as bad as any of them.

"No." Jesse scuffs his boot against the deck. His necklaces clink as the sea moves beneath them. Motion that Jesse hardly even notices now. He thinks of Genji down in the dark. "You needed to talk to me, Commander?"

"Yeah," Gabriel says. He crosses his arms. Out on the deck is not private but most of the crew are below, or up in the rigging.

Jesse can see Fareeha from here. Her dark skin practically glowing in the sun from where she is settled leaning against the mainmast. A lookout, though at the moment she appears distracted, reading over something. Wrinkled papers Jesse has no hope of discerning from here.

He looks back down.

Focuses on Gabe. His Captain. The King of the Sea, unamused.

Jesse looks at his feet.

"You know what I'm going to say, don't you?" Gabriel says.

Two ways to go about this: denial or blissful ignorance.

Jesse grins. "Nope," he says. "You got me at a disadvantage here, Captain."

Gabe's frown settles deeper. The scarring on his cheeks makes the expression all the more dramatic.

"You know we have him on half-rations until we've gotten an answer from his brother. Why is it Winston found this," Gabe pulls the orange rind from the pocket of his jacket, just a few strips of it, "when he went down to feed the prisoner?"

Jesse swallows. "You don't gotta call him that, Captain."

"What? Prisoner? That's what he is, Jesse."

"Not really." Jesse rolls his shoulders, makes vague gesture with his hands. "He's just a kid, caught up in...in something bigger than he is. It's not like--"

"Not like he'd treat you the same," Gabriel says, flatly, "if the tables were turned. Look what they did to Jack." His voice catches just a little on the name.

Jesse feels shame, crawling across the skin of his lower belly. Prickling. It changes nothing really, he stands on the topic of Prince Genji where he stands. But he can feel guilty for feeling that way and he does, truly.

"He's just--look, I'm pretty good at reading people and he. That is Prin--Genji. I think somehow he could be. Valuable."

Not the right way to put it. Gabriel's eyebrows shift up. Surprise across his face.

"You mean a ransom?"

Jesse bites his lip. The disbelief in Gabriel's voice is what hits him the hardest. The outright rejection of Genji's worth as a person.

"I meant as a crew member."

"You let him out of that cell and he'll try to kill you, Jesse. You can't talk sense into him. You, Jesse McCree, Prince of the Sea, you aren't worth anything to him. Except maybe as a pawn." Gabriel shakes his head. "I need you to understand that."

Jesse thinks of Genji's lips, the feel of his teeth, the sharp edges. Genji licking the heel of his own palm off. Genji's chest, pale and white down in the darkness.

"I think you're wrong, Captain."

Gabriel sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Don't make me make this an order, Jesse. You're...you have to stop. You have to. Do you think the other's won't notice? Do you think they won't talk?"

They're already talking. Jesse has been hearing whispers of it since the brought Genji on board. The pretty, captive prince. Silks and fineries and plump lips. They did the same when Fareeha came abroad years ago. She had been quick to put them all in their place.

Genji breaking Faust's arm had been sort of the same show of power. Most of the crew are scared of him, of the claws, of the bite.

But Gabriel has a point.

He always has a point.

"I understand you want to keep him safe, keep him fed, keep him happy. Can't say I understand why, but I understand that you want to."

"Okay," Jesse says. Eager to be done with it. "Consider me chastised. I get it. I'll..." He cannot say he will stop because he has no intention of stopping. He says the next best thing. "I'll think on all you've said."

"Think on it?"

"Yeah, Captain. Think on it."

The best he can offer.

Gabriel sighs again. Looks away. There will be punishment next time, Jesse understands that much. This was his warning. The one and only.

He reaches out, squeezes Gabriel's shoulder. The best he can offer. The best he can do.

\--

And Jesse does try to do as he promised. He doesn't go down to visit Genji the next day. Or the day after.

Half-rations isn't exactly starving.

The crew of the Sea Shrike hasn't done anything to outright hurt the prince. There is an intent, after a fashion, to return him to his brother and his home after all this is set and done.

And that thought, the drawing, noose-like fact that eventually Genji's time with them--with Jesse--will come to an end; is what sends Jesse wandering down to the cells on that third day.

He doesn't fully understand it himself, this obsession he has with the prince. The man is equal parts petulant and cocky by turns. Unlikeable by a lot of standards. But Jesse has become fond of him over the monthlong stint that Genji has been here.

A pawn, Jesse thinks as he takes the ladder down into the dark underbelly of the ship. Gabriel's words echoed colder. Genji just stringing him along to use him in the end is always possible.

Jesse isn't sure what it says about him that it's a possibility he doesn't fully mind.

Navigating the ladder while balancing the plate of bread and cheese he is bringing down to Genji and the lantern is hard. Takes most of his concentration. Maybe that's why he doesn't hear the voices until he has already reached the bottom. Or maybe it has to do with the acoustics, down here in the heart of her.

Jesse pauses. Alert.

A voice he doesn't recognize, twisted out of shape by the echoes, shushes another. A sharp, stinging, sibilant s.

Someone, in the darkness of the cells chuckles.

And then moans.

Jesse feels his heart.

It's in his throat.

A sudden, blinding red across his vision. The plate of food jitters in his suddenly trembling grip. The bread which had really only been balanced with luck skitters off the plate and falls to the wood with a nearly inaudible thump.

Another noise from the cells. This one more familiar. Sickeningly so. Genji's small mewl of dissent.

The whole plate is pretty quick to follow at that. It shatters against the hardwood as Jesse moves before he can even fully analyze what he is doing.

There is a candle in Genji's cell. A small uncovered flame, tipped on its side.

The door is open.

Wide open.

A ration of food spread out over the floor. Signs of a struggle, a scuffle.

No Genji though.

No one.

Jesse spins in a circle with the lantern held high. Tasting copper in the back of his throat. The resonant flavor of panic.

The voices have gone silent.

Jesse takes a shuddering breath.

He closes his eyes.

The ship seems to breath with him. The sound of the sea, sighing against the wood. The creaking, settling chorus he has become accustomed to. Ana's Sea Shrike, the only home Jesse has ever really known.

The boat rolls on a wave, a choppy, sudden shift that Jesse feels even with his sea legs.

A barrel, further down the hall, not tied down to anything falls. Crashes to the wooden floor and bursts, spilling its slick black oil like guts.

A man's voice curses.

And Jesse is on them in a second.

Hidden behind a stack of barrels. Two men. And Prince Genji.

The lantern sputters as the boat pitches again. But the light does not go out.

Part of Jesse wishes it would.

The scene is not something he had ever dreamed of seeing. Is not something he ever wished to see.

Genji's lips are swollen. There is a bruise on his slender throat. Five distinct fingers. Blood under his nose and on his collar bone, which is now exposed. Gooseflesh in the cool, dank air.

His clothes are further ruined, the rich silks hang off his hips, ripped and tattered by more than just salt air.

Oscar is holding him by the elbows.

His large hands, sun browned and calloused, are pressing more bruises into Genji's skin.

It's not hard to imagine what has happened. Two men and Genji's muffled complaint.

Torres hasn't even had time to put his cock away.

The lantern light catches him as he fixes his belts. The casual way he pushes his erection back into his slacks. But there is blood across his knuckles.

And that really is all that Jesse needs to see.

"You," Genji begins to say. His eyes are huge. Watery.

"Well, fuck me," says Torres. He half turns toward Jesse. Three of his teeth, right in the front, are gold. They catch the firelight. Glitter sickly within his mouth. "Prince of the Sea," he says. He has always had the unfortunate drawl of always sounding sarcastic, but Jesse cannot help thinking that maybe this time it is not so unintentional. "Come down from the throne for a bit of fun too?"

Genji struggles, but Oscar is the second largest crewman on the Shrike next to Hog. It takes barely a twitch from his big, muscular arms and Genji is rendered further immobile. One of his hands, easily the size of Genji's face cups over Genji's mouth.

Jesse takes a breath. His mouth is slick and wet with salvia, no longer panic dry, this is anger and adrenaline.

These two men--

These two fucking animals have hurt Genji.

That information circles around itself in Jesse's head. Coils and cuts.

Torres is still touching his belt. There is a knife, cruel and sharp, hanging from it. And next to that, Gabriel's keys.

Jesse takes the details in between each beat of his heart. Each expanding of his lungs. Like being underwater, where everything is slower.

Torres' eyebrows raise. "Hm," he says. "What d'ya think, Oscar, think we should share this little prize?"

The big man looks put on the spot. His eyes dart from Torres to Jesse and back.

Jesse isn't scared that they will kill him. He is Gabriel's right hand man, but more than that, neither crewman is stupid. They couldn't take him in a fair fight, Jesse is too quick and too limber. But Torres has a knife and Genji, Genji is an uncovered chest, his skin is pale and like a target beacon.

The crew is under orders not to harm Genji, but it's pretty obvious where Torres and Oscar stand on that matter. They were both friends of Faust. Jesse himself has never been particularly fond of any of them.

Oscar is still looking around. The strong, square cut of his jaw is trembling. The weak link between the two of them. Jesse turns to him.

"Cap'n won't take too kindly to this, you know," Jesse says.

"Shut up," Torres bites. "He's a hostage anyhow. What's it matter we rough him up some? Weren't gonna kill him."

"That's right," Oscar says, nodding. "We ain't murderers."

Except when the situation calls for it. Everyone on this crew has shed blood. No one is innocent from that crime.

"And he has such a pretty mouth," Torres continues. He squeezes the front of his trousers for emphasis. His eyes flutter close and his teeth gleam. "You wait your turn, Sea Prince," he says, caressing now, working himself up, "I don't see why this can't be a secret between the three of us."

Four of us.

Jesse isn't sure who he isn't counting. Which someone they plan to dispose of when all is said and done.

Oscar's big hand shifts on Genji's face, pinching and Genji's mouth opens. Gasping and panting for breath.

The inside is so red, his tongue and his lips. The whites of his teeth. Terribly sensual.

Torres shoots Jesse one last grin, he steps forward and Oscar kicks Genji's legs out from under him.

The prince hits the hardwood with a groan.

And Jesse does the only thing he can think of at the moment.

He throws the lantern.

It catches Torres square in the back, explodes in shards of metal, fire, oil. Not a killing blow, not even close. Torres' cheap, salt-crusted jacket doesn't even catch.

But it gives Jesse the precious seconds he needs.

He throws himself at Oscar and Genji. Drives his fist up into Oscar's jaw, the soft section of throat, just above his Adam's apple. He doesn't pull the punch, he doesn't try to take it back at the last second.

Something crunches under his knuckles.

Oscar's breath skirts across his face like a bullet and the big man crumples. Jesse turns to help Genji from where he was dropped, but the Prince is already up. Gone. Vanished like smoke.

And there's no more than a second to look for him anyway because the next thing Jesse knows is the weight of Torres on his back. The man's hands around his throat. From behind that method of chokehold is not very effective.

Torres' dirty nails cut into the skin.

Jesse twists, elbows sharply into Torres' stomach, but the man expects the move. His abs tighten and Jesse's blow deflects soundly. Torres' fingers slip. His arm slides home, Jesse's throat cradled in the unforgiving seam of his elbow.

And Torres squeezes.

Jesse has come close to drowning a couple of times. He is convinced there is no such thing as a good sailor who hasn't. The Sea tests the people who reside in her. She is a harsh, but rarely cruel mistress.

Choking here and now, in the dark dank cells, is not like drowning in the sea.

There is nothing peaceful.

And everything hurts.

Torres' knees locked around his chest are weight Jesse can no longer bear. Torres' breath across his ear--humid, fetid--reminds Jesse of the sweet oxygen his throat cannot currently process. His mouth gapes.

And he fights, struggles. Gurgles his last few moments.

But he losing.

And he is losing fast.

His legs give and he sinks to the floor.

It's a little unfair.

He never assumed he would be taken down quite so backhandedly. What would Ana say? What would Jack say? Gabriel?

Jesse's fingers rip bloody against Torres' arm. Black spots--bad luck, bad omens and worse--dance at the edges of his vision. Vibrating. Circling like sharks.

And everything goes dark.

 

 

And like fire, suddenly, there is color and sound and screaming life again.

Jesse coughs, gags. Blessed oxygen, cool and salty and lifesaving trips against his tongue. He swallows greedily. Heaving.

His arms shake as he pushes himself up. His elbows threatening to buckle on him. Torres' weight is gone. A hand, delicate and cool touches Jesse's shoulder, slides down to his chest.

Prince Genji.

With his doe eyes, with his green hair like seaweed.

Jesse lets the prince pull him to standing.

"Are you all right?" Genji asks.

It should be Jesse asking. His hands raise to hold Genji's shoulders. His fingers are shaking against Genji's skin, trembling.

Or maybe it's Genji shaking.

Too hard to tell, down here in the dark where everything is muddled.

"I'm fine," Jesse says. His voice is thick, like a bruise. His throat gives a dull, aching complaint. He glances behind him.

Torres is curled on the floor. Shock frozen across his face. His own knife hanging from the back of his head. Twisted deep. Jesse doesn't shudder and he doesn't look away.

"You did that?" he asks.

Genji stares up at him. "He was killing you."

"I know. I don't mean...I'm thankin' you. Or tryin' to."

Genji shrugs. His mouth opens. His mouth closes.

Oscar groans. His hands move. Genji is moving for the knife before Jesse can stop him.

"Wait," he says.

Genji, surprisingly, does. He is still holding the knife and standing over Oscar. But he doesn't bring it down. He squints at Jesse in the gloom. "Why," he asks.

"You don't have to kill him."

"Do you know what he did to me?"

"I saw. And I know. But...we don't run a ship like that. Go get Gabriel, I'll watch the scum."

"Why?" Genji says again. Sharper. The knife trembles, Genji shaking, no trick of the dark this time. "So you can let him off? Give him extra cleaning? Punishment?"

Jesse pinches the bridge of his nose. His throat feels raw, overly stretched.

"It's the sea for him, your highness," Jesse says.

Genji's eyes narrow. "What?"

"The sea. He broke a direct order. Couple if you count," Jesse trails off, waves his hand. The how and why's of pirate law are unimportant at the moment.

The only thing Genji needs to know is:

"Captain Gabriel will give you your justice," Jesse says. "He'll walk the plank."

\---

"You sure you wanna be watchin' this," Gabriel asks.

The air around them is still and heavy. Genji's clothing still hangs, ripped and ruined, from his torso. The sun crawls across the sky.

No breeze.

Dead water.

No sharks, no playful dolphins, no waves.

What a lonely way to die.

"I will see him put to death." Genji says. He has refused to leave Jesse's side since bringing Captain Gabriel down to the cells a few hours ago. Not to change, not to eat, not to cry.

Jesse doesn't really know the reaction he was expecting from Genji, but this stubborn clinginess was not it.

Not that he is complaining. Genji will work through his emotions the way that he must. Jesse will support him, any way that he can.

Oscar has not stopped fighting since the captain arrived on scene. He mutters and he curses and he yells and he bawls, until Hog takes matters into his own hands and knocks the man out cold again. A pitiful way to await an equally pitiful execution.

Oscar is sobbing, tied to the masthead. Sunburn on his tan cheeks.

Genji stares at him now and nods to Gabriel again. "I want to see this pirate justice," Genji says. "Jesse has promised me this."

Gabriel's eyes flash once, cool and measuring, over Jesse's face. His expression remains neutral however. Stern. The Captain now. The judge and jury.

"Justice," he says. His eyes flutter closed; long, dark lashes against the deep brown of his cheeks. "My men," he says, at a yell.

The assembled on deck look up, look over. Respect in the lines of their shoulders. Jesse has always admired the respect Gabriel's bearing demands.

The King of the Sea.

Next to him, Genji fidgets. His fingers move in his ragged silks.

Gabriel's speech continues. An outcrying of Oscar's crimes. Jesse isn't listening. He watches Genji's face. The shifts in Genji's expressions.

Pain. Embarrassment. The prince ashamed. They should have gotten him proper clothes first. Jesse should have demanded.

"And what does the accused have to say for himself?" Gabriel asks.

Oscar, still sniffling, shakes his head. "I didn't, Cap'n," he says. He has a black eye, a missing tooth. Jesse watches but all he can see are the fingerprint bruises around Genji's throat like a necklace.

He feels not an ounce of pity.

Or regret.

"He offered," Oscar yells. His voice is thick, phlegmy. "Said he'd make it worth it if we let him out. Weren't supposed to hurt 'im , weren't gonna 'til he got mouthy on Tor. Oh god, oh god please, Cap'n. Please."

Gabriel is a statue. Cold.

Merciless.

The King of the Ocean. Harsh.

But rarely cruel.

He makes a hand gesture. A snipping, cutting swipe with his palm.

A gun goes off and Oscar's blubbering cuts off mid-sob.

The crew doesn't flinch.

Genji does.

Oscar's brains splash out across the wood of the deck. Spoiling it. A blight on her.

"Get it out of my sight," Gabriel says. "Toss him overboard. And his mate too."

The crew turns away.

Only then does Genji sink to his knees. Heaving. His shoulders shaking and jittering. Jesse squeezes them. Skin and bones and not much else beneath his palms.

"I'm sorry," Genji says. Through his teeth, gritted. "I thought I'd...I wanted to see it," he says.

"I'm sorry," Jesse says. "I said I'd protect you from...people like them."

Gabriel is watching the two of them. His eyes are sharp. There is little he misses.

But this time, there seems to be some pity in him. Some resistance to the hardened part he so often plays.

He scrubs a hand through his beard. Closes his eyes.

"Jesse," he says.

Reluctantly, Jesse stands. He meets Gabriel's gaze.

"Take...the Prince back to your quarters," Gabriel says. He dallies over the title. Jesse knows the other he has to pick from. But the use of the word Prince and not Prisoner is so, so important.

"Get him some clothes," Gabriel continues. "Some of your old things. And get him cleaned up. A member of the crew, you said, well. Looks like you just got your wish."

"Are you...d'ya mean it?"

"When have you ever known me to joke about that sort of thing?"

"I just...yes. Of course, sir. Cap'n, sir. I just...thank you, is all."

Gabriel doesn't quite smile. He rolls his eyes. Fixes his hat.

"Don't make me regret it, kid."

\---

"Do you believe him?" Genji asks as he slips into one of Jesse's old shirts. It is too big, the lace-up front flaps over Genji's thinner chest. His collarbones stand out like a shoal in the shallows. Bony. Stark.

"Believe who, darlin'?"

Genji pauses. He runs a hand through his hair. Mussing it. They let him keep his rings, they flash gold and silver among the strands.

"That man. What he said. About...me offering."

"Why would I believe that?"

Jesse thinks of Genji's teeth, the feel of them, sharp and sweet against his knuckles. The warm heat. The sticky juice from the orange, bright and citrus across his tongue.

"Because I did the same to you," Genji says. He doesn't look away. His gaze remains firm and steady.

Jesse grins. An attempt to break the tension. "I thought maybe I was special," he says with a laugh. Self-depreciating is an angle he can work. "But no, I don't believe him."

Genji twists the trousers Jesse had given him between his hands. The lines around his eyes are tight. Confusion.

"I don't understand you, Sea Prince."

"I don't really know that there is much to understand." Jesse grins again. He stands, stretches. Genji watches him through it all, blatantly. The thought coils warm in Jesse's gut, though there is no time for it now.

It's only when Jesse meets his gaze that Genji looks away.

"I'll give you some privacy," Jesse says. "You let me know when you're ready."

"Ready?"

"To be welcomed to the ship, proper-like. You're a crewman now, basically, whether you like it or not."

And Jesse, truly, truly hopes that he likes it.


	2. Press-Ganged

Fareeha takes to him instantly.

Jesse probably shouldn't be surprised. She is the brightest of the crew, sweet and open and gentle when the situation allows. She lacks the hardened shell of her mother, she lacks stern bearing.

She makes up for it with a vindictive streak and a temper.

But Genji has wrought neither of those.

"You're tying that knot wrong, your highness," Fareeha says.

The sun hangs low toward the horizon. It will be night soon. The breeze is a forgiving kiss off the water.

Genji holds the ropes in question. He stares at her.

"Excuse me?"

Most of the crew, bar Jesse himself, do not talk to him. Genji's amazement at being addressed is poorly hidden.

"Wrong," she says again. Her hands move and suddenly she is touching him. Jesse watches the prince stiffen, watches the way his eyes go wide. Her hands cup his own, manipulate the rope into coils and twists, knotting it. Guiding him through the process.

  
  


"You see?" she says.

Jesse takes a drag off his cigarillo.

"Do you want me to show you again?"

Genji licks his lips. He glances at Jesse. Awaiting guidance or permission or something. Jesse waves his hand.

It has been two weeks since the incident in the cells. Two weeks of Genji's press-ganged pirate service. He is not the natural that Jesse has quite expected, but he is taking to it, slowly. Learning a little more, everyday.

He's starting to look the part more too. A rash of sunburn across his chest and his cheeks.

It is impossible to tell, right now in this moment, if the color on the tips of his ears is more of that sunburn, or if he is blushing. Unsure and out of step by being handled so bluntly.

"Sure," Genji says, finally, slowly. When he realizes that Jesse is not coming to his aid. That Jesse seems to be watching with what probably looks like unabashed amusement across his face.

Fareeha smiles. She tugs on her hair ornament. In the dying light everything is softer. Gentle. Fareeha gathers up her own section of rope and sits cross-legged on the deck. She pats the space next to her impatiently.

Until Genji joins her.

"Okay," she says, "so there's a story here. About a rabbit you see who--"

A child's way of learning a sailor's knot. A poem of twists and ties and loops. Jesse turns away.

He leaves them to it.

The ocean seems to glitter in the dying light. The shifting, clear blue of crystal. Flashing scales of fish just visible, schooling beneath the ship. He leans against the railing. Smoke from his cigarillo catches and drags.

The sun dips and the light gets more golden.

They are going to have to return him eventually. Sooner, rather than later. Jesse scans the flat horizon. The sun and the clouds and the endless sea.

Eventually, one day, navy flags and sails will be seen breaking across that expanse and Hanzo will have caught up to them and the end will come.

Or they return him, before then, and avoid the misery.

'My brother will kill you,' Genji had said. And Jesse knows, in his gut, that he was not wrong.

"Are you just gonna stand out here all night," Genji asks. His voice comes from right by Jesse's shoulder and Jesse jumps and turns at the intrusion.

"I was...thinking."

"Lost in thought. It's dangerous, isn't it? Losing yourself like that." Genji leans forward so his own upper body is braced against the railing. His neck a graceful arc as he peers down into the water below. Cutting white froth in their wake. "You could fall over board," Genji says. "And wouldn't that just be a shame."

"I like to think it would be," Jesse says with a grin. A hand on Genji's shoulder. Casual touches.

Genji is still wearing Jesse's spare clothes. Two weeks recycling the same three shirts, the same two sets of trousers. No one on the boat smells of roses and cloves, but Genji has begun to smell like sweat and labor and Jesse.

And Jesse.

Genji maneuvers out of his grip. Twists until his back makes a popping noise.

"I'm tired," he says.

A routine they have fallen into. Jesse is not sure exactly how he feels about it. He is trying to give Genji space. To respect the boundaries the other two members of his crew trampled so carelessly.

"You know where the quarters are, your highness," he says, lightly. He taps the cigarillo out in a snuff box he carries. He doesn't watch the way Genji frowns at the words.

Or at least, he pretends he doesn't.

"You won't escort me?"

"Ain't no monsters under the cot, your highness. You know that as well as I. No one else here is gonna hurt you."

It's callous to say, selfish. Genji's shoulders shift, stiffen. His frown deepens.

They stand like that.

Silent.

The light has gone purple. Dusk.

Genji looks away.

"I...want you to escort me," Genji says.

So Jesse does. He hates himself for caving so easily.

His quarters, while not as large as Gabriel's, are still pretty nice. An open space with threadbare carpets (once ornate and detailed and rich but the sea air has done its work) and a nice mahogany desk. A richly upholstered couch. A rather large cot. Private water closet.

Genji approaches the bed. His fingers move over the sheets.

"Happy, Genji?"

Genji frowns. Stubborn. He turns to face Jesse. "Are you leaving?"

"Was gonna."

Gabriel has a couch in his quarters as well, more plush, the wooden legs are sturdier. And it's safer.

Safer.

Jesse doesn't trust himself. Not with Genji so thin and slight in his clothes, with his red lips and his dark eyes and his sunburn.

It's safer to stay elsewhere. Away from the temptation of it.

Genji looks down at his knees.

"I don't want you to go," he says. He looks up. "I order you to stay."

The words roll over Jesse, curl in his stomach.

"Your highness."

"Jesse," Genji says. He lifts the shirt up and over his head. The necklaces clatter and clank as the settle on his chest. He is trembling.

Jesse hates it. How it takes everything in him not to cross the room and wrap Genji in his arms. Genji's skin beneath his lips. Arching beneath him, panting and begging and open-mouthed.

Genji suspended between Torres and Oscar, Genji with tears at the corner of his eyes. Genji's small sounds of complaint.

"I should go," Jesse says. Tearing his eyes away, looking down at the floor.

Genji's breathing is terribly loud between them.

Jesse leaves before he can say anything else.

Every night for the past two weeks they have had this standoff. Genji offering, shaking, like it is some term they have come to. Jesse refusing and refusing and refusing despite how everything in him wants to agree.

The couch in Gabriel's room is well-worn. Not big enough to really stretch out on, but the captain doesn't question him or tell him no, so Jesse makes do.

Gabriel is only there about half the time anyway. Usually too busy wandering the decks at night, the insomnia of lost lovers, of those still left behind.

Tonight is one such night.

Jesse settles on the couch. Rolls on his side. His coat he has discarded and it is too warm for blankets.

He closes his eyes.

Traitorously, he thinks of Genji.

Genji's thighs around his cock, Genji's fingers curling by his ears. Genji saying his name, over and over.

Jesse jerks off as quickly and efficiently as possible. He imagines Genji's needling grin, Genji's quick accusations, Genji's white teeth. The demure, shaking, trembling offer Genji gives every night is not what Jesse wants.

It isn't fair, what Jesse wants.

So it is best ignored.

Best for the both of them.

\--

"I'm getting better, aren't I?" Genji asks.

Lookout duty, Jesse's least favorite job. Genji did not have to join him up here, but, of course, Genji has.

Jesse tests the knots Genji has been tying. Pulls on them, twists them this way and that.

"Yeah," he says. "It's good. Weight-worthy. You gonna use these knots when you get back?"

Genji leans back against the mast. His fingertips curl against the hardwood. "I dunno," he says. He tips his head, the breeze ruffles his hair.

God, Jesse just wants him to stay. Just wants him to say that he will stay.

Impossible as it is.

"Probably not."

"You could always join the Royal Navy."

Genji rolls his eyes. He steps forward, to look out over the boat, over the sea. He closes his eyes. His chest moves as he breathes.

"Hanzo would never allow it."

"Your brother is sorta an ass."

Genji smiles, a small curl at the corner of his lips.

Unconsciously Jesse finds himself leaning into Genji's form. His eyes studying the hair at the nape of Genji's neck, the sharp angles of his vertebrae, right there under his skull.

"Yeah," Genji says. "He is."

"Wanna talk about it?"

Genji shrugs. The scent of him, thick and cloying, sweat and salt air, rolls over Jesse in a wave from how close he is standing. "What is there to say? He is under a lot of pressure."

"That your way of excusing murder?" Jesse doesn't really mean to sound as harsh as he does.

He thinks of Jack, golden blond in the sun. Gabe haunting the ship like a ghost at night.

Genji shakes his head, turns. The move isn't expected, Jesse is too close. Genji's shoulder bumps against his chest.

"I don't know anything about that. Beyond the obvious. Raiding our stores, the food for our people, that's justified of course," Genji says. Matching Jesse's tone. Frowning.

The anger is like coal, rolling through Jesse's gut. Sharp and jagged and hot.

"I guess that's just what pirates do, huh?" Genji bites, tipping his chin. Defiance and fight in his bearing. "Take and not care what happens to anyone else."

Take.

And take.

Jesse pushes closer, suddenly. He's bigger than Genji, it's not difficult, moving them into a better position. His knee slides between Genji's thighs, Genji's breath is hot on his neck.

He wants this, the fight in it. Genji opinionated and royal and rude.

Genji's mouth opens. Another argument forming across his tongue, Jesse can see it. The way it sparks behind his eyes. It would be so easy, to kiss him, claim him, here and now with the sea as their witness.

  
  


His knee hitches higher, lightly, teasing. Whatever complaint Genji was going to utter, dies in his throat, works over a groan instead. Genji's hands find Jesse's shoulders, clamp down in an anchoring effort.

Jesse leans in, smirking. "So this is what pirates do, your highness?" It would be so easy. It would be so, so easy.

Genji's lashes flutter. The rings on his fingers catch in the material of Jesse's coat.

"Damn you," he says. "Damn you."

Jesse grins. His nose brushes into Genji's hairline. The smell of oils, the same perfumed one Jesse rubs into his beard occasionally. Someone has been raiding his stores.

And he dares to throw the accusation of pirate thievery.

Genji's breath stutters between his lips.

"Tell me to stop," Jesse says. "Order me to."

Genji's expression folds in on itself. Is it duty, does he want this, Jesse can read the war in the way Genji's eyebrows flex.

"I won't," Genji says. "I'm not going to give you that satisfaction."

Jesse cranes his neck back. More viciousness in Genji's tone. Out of place with the teasing Jesse had been doing.

And again, horribly, Jesse thinks of Torres. Of Oscar. Of Genji's teeth against the skin of his knuckles. Genji's skin in the dark of his cabin, the necklaces rolling against his chest.

"Genji..."

This shift, sudden and jarring, feels like betrayal. Like getting his sea-legs for the first time. Jittery, unstable.

"I don't--"

"Get off of me," Genji says. Though his hands tighten on Jesse's arms, contradictory.

Genji down in the dark. Genji breathing. Genji desperate. Suddenly it makes sense. Gabriel had warned him, hadn't he?

Jesse lets go.

Jesse steps away.

Genji seems to physically deflate. His weight sags against the waist high barrier of the crows nest. He isn't looking at Jesse, but slightly off the left. His cheeks are pink, distracting.

Oscar and Torres.

And Jesse.

And Jesse.

It stings. Jesse closes his eyes. He swallows.

"I'm sorry," he says. He doesn't know what for. He isn't sure. Genji's expression tightens, his eyebrows draw inward.

"Just...leave me alone," Genji says.

So Jesse does.

He's not sure what else he's supposed to do.

\--

He's still clambering down the rigging when he sees it.

Jesse freezes.

He grabs at the ropes keeping the sails tied down, the material snaps and flutters in the wind.

Above him, he can still see Genji's face, smaller for the distance, so far up the mast. Peering down at him.

Jesse looks back down.

The sail on the horizon has not disappeared.

A dark smudge, too far to really make out but too square to be anything but a sail. Too angular for clouds.

Jesse swallows. Looks up at Genji once more. Hanzo? The Royal Navy? Or worse.

It could always, always be worse.

\--

"They're catching up," Fareeha says. Her face is grim. Her fingers white-knuckled around the spyglass.

Gabriel is a silent brooding presence behind them. Standing at the helm with Torb.

"Recognize her," Junkrat asks. His voice trembles, but Jesse recognizes the thrill of the hunt in the wavering. None of the Sea Shrike are cowards and fighting is sometimes a part of life on the ocean.

Fareeha shakes her head, passes the brass tube off to Winston. The bespectacled steward squints as he peers through the glass, shakes his head.

To each in turn, they all get a look.

"The Urchin," Jesse reads, peering through the glass himself. "And a word I can't catch. They're too far out."

He looks up to Torb and Gabriel.

"Can we outrun her?"

Torb is frowning. The little man's hands shift on the helm. "Not likely," he says, grimly. Though everything Torb says sounds grim, it's just his lot. Dire seriousness.

Genji is holding the spyglass, not looking through it. Staring out at the sea. Standing at Jesse's elbow because there is no one else. Because he has no one else.

"Why are they chasing us?" he asks.

"Pirates," Fareeha says. The skull and crossbones fluttering above their ship is close enough now to see. Jesse imagines that he can hear it, catching in the wind. Marking pursuit.

Jesse shrugs. "It's what pirates do, right? Take what they want."

Genji looks away.

Fareeha, missing the reference, shakes her head. "Won't find such easy prey here though, so fear not, your highness. This ain't our first sea skirmish. Sure as hell won't be our last." She looks up, shoots Gabriel a smile. "Ain't that right, Captain?"

Gabriel's eyes narrow.

Then he nods, once, curt.

"We got an hour, at least, before they catch up," he says. "Maybe longer if the wind stays with us. Let's prepare for battle. Gunners below at the ready." 

The crew cheers, war whoops, blood-thirsty.

"What's that mean?" Genji asks, stepping closer as the crew around them begins to move.

Jesse sighs. "Means we're gonna try to turn on her, once she's closer. Hit her with cannonfire, if we can."

Genji bites his lips. His hands hang at his sides. "We can't just run?"

"We're pirates," Jesse says, he touches Genji's shoulder. Maybe the contact is unwanted, Genji's eyelids flutter. Reluctantly, Jesse lets go. "We don't run," he says.

"What if they just want to talk," Genji asks.

"Think your brother's running under pirate banners, your highness?"

"That's...not what I meant."

Jesse smiles, genuine. "Sure it is. Chances they're working for your brother though, not what I'd wanna risk. Not everybody's as...accommodating as us."

Genji is not meeting his gaze.

"Let's get you below deck, Genji. It's gonna get dangerous up here pretty shortly."


	3. Ransomed

Jesse is covered in blood.

He takes a breath, shaky, and everything filters into focus.

The blood isn't his.

Maybe that's the most important part.

The blood is hot, metallic and slimy against his lips, in his eyes. His breath stutters between his teeth, and the blood is on his tongue. Copper like coins. Thick and visceral.

Fareeha is yelling, her youthful, distinctly feminine voice drifts to Jesse, but she is too far away. Across the deck. She turns, viciously, her saber cuts into the neck of one of the bearded men who have boarded them.

The blood spurts quickly, like a geyser.

But it is less terrible than the blood on Jesse.

The blood that is not his.

Because it is Gabriel's.

The captain's form slumps heavily against Jesse. His breath is hot enough to rival the heat of his blood, puffing against Jesse's neck. The King of the Sea, gut-shot, dying.

The air around them is filled with gunfire and yelling, curses. The deck creaks under Jesse's boots. His soles slip in Gabriel's blood, splashed beneath his feet. He sinks under Gabriel's dead weight. His knees give out.

The man who had shot Gabriel is reloading, standing on the railing behind them, jamming powder into his gun. It's not anything like Jesse has ever seen before, large, unwieldy. The barrel is the size of the man's forearm. He is smiling. His front teeth are missing and Jesse thinks of Torres.

The anger turns over in his stomach. Over and over.

"They are here for Genji," Gabriel had said, moments before the cannon-fire had broken out. Holding onto Jesse's arm, fingers digging in just above the elbow.

Gabriel had never been one to believe in coincidence.

Jesse hadn't known what to do with the knowledge then and he certainly doesn't now. But the memory surfaces regardless. Bobs like something caught in the sea.

"They are here for Genji."

They are here for Genji.

Jesse pulls himself out from under Gabriel. He doesn't miss the groan that wheezes past his Captain's lips as the man hits the deck.

Still alive.

But there is no room for that thought.

Things are insular now. Happening in moments, suspended from one another.

Jesse pulls Peacekeeper from his belt. Jack had traded for her with a merchant from across the sea. He had used words like State of the Art when presenting her to Jesse. And Jesse has always loved her, trusted her. Her lack of powder, her complicated chamber, her gold tinted bullets.

The invader has nearly finished loading. Powder dusts his jacket. His hands are shaking as he raises the gun.

But Jesse is the faster shot.

Jesse has always been the faster shot.

Jesse is not known as the Prince of the Sea--as the now second in command--for nothing.

Peacekeeper's bullet takes the man in the chest. His weight tips backwards, his shot goes wide as he falls into the empty air. The bullet from his gun, fist-sized piece of lead, shatters against the main mast. The wood groans, dangerously. The man's crash into the sea is lost in the chaos of noise that crashes over Jesse as the adrenaline subsides somewhat.

Fareeha, across the deck is the first person Jesse looks for. She has dispatched another man in the time it took Jesse to deal with Gabriel's assailant. She too is blood-splattered.

They share a look.

A surfaced serene moment of peace, rising above the chaos. She tips her head to Gabe, then she turns and runs and the moment is gone.

Jesse takes the hint.

He drops to the deck, gathers Gabriel to him. Props him up as best he can. The tattered ends of Gabriel's coat Jesse tries to push against the wound in his side. The gaping, bloody mess of it. Blown outward.

Gabriel's eyelids flutter. There is sweat on his brow. Beads of it roll down his chin, into his goatee.

Jesse doesn't know what to do. How to fix this.

His fingers shake, blood-stained, against Gabe's chest.

"Captain," he is saying. "You gotta...Captain you..."

He isn't crying.

He is dry-eyed.

Because this cannot be happening. He cannot be losing Gabriel. He can't.

He jerks his hands, grabbing a fistful of Gabriel's shirt, tugging it forward, snapping it back. Violent.

Gabe's head lolls.

Gabe's body sags.

"It's over, kid," a voice says.

For a moment, the voice could almost be Jack's. Come to bring his lover to the other side.

The sleek, cool, barrel of a gun slides against Jesse's cheek. Presses into the tangled hair of his beard. All thoughts of Jack disappear, foam at the crest of a wave. Gone.

"Stand up," the person says.

So Jesse does. He turns. The pistol tracks him, jamming up under his chin once he's turned around completely. The man--he must be the captain of the Urchin's Mercy, Jesse reasons--smiles.

He is blond, though thinner than Jack, shorter, and his hair is longer, tangled over his shoulder in a thick braid. The pistol is dark and elegant.

And so deadly.

Jesse doesn't flinch when the man presses it harder against his windpipe. He stands his ground.

"Prince of the Sea," the man says. He smiles widens. His teeth are even and straight and white. "Tell me where the boy is and we'll let you and your crew live. Show me to the Shimada Prince," the gun cocks, the click of it is emotionless, "and we'll be on our way."

Jesse cannot do that.

Can he?

His family.

This crew is his family. Fareeha and Mako and Winston. His friends. The ones who have raised him from a skinny, bloody-kneed kid.

And Genji.

What of Genji?

With his wounded eyes. His fingers on Jesse's shoulders. Wiping crabmeat from his chin. His hands in the dark.

Jesse cannot do this.

Jesse must do this.

He swallows. There will be a bruise from the barrel, he can already feel it forming.

"I--" he starts to say.

Fareeha's face. Gabriel. And Jack. And Ana.

And Genji and Genji and Genji.

"I won't," he says.

The man makes a face, momentary confusion. Under his blond beard his mouth twitches. His eyebrows raise.

"Oh," he says. Conversationally. "Pity." The man moves his arm away, the pressure below Jesse's Adam's apple loosens.

Jesse only has a second to consider it, to breathe freely.

Then the pistol slams into his temple.

And he collapses to the deck.

Below him, the sea rolls. And pitches. And churns.

\--

Jesse surfaces.

Still covered in blood. Dry now; it cracks as he moves. Flaking against his lips.

His eyes open.

But he cannot see anything.

He blinks.

Tries again.

Darkness, unforgiving and impenetrable. His legs move, tensing, and he recognizes the sound of metal.

Foreign weight around his ankle.

He moves his arms, finds them free, not tied down to anything. He paws at his own face.

Someone has tied a black cloth around his head. The knots are tight, the material digs unkindly against his brow, until Jesse, clawing at it, bordering panic, manages to rip it over his head.

Even without the blindfold, there is not much too see. But even dim dankness is better then nothing.

Jesse squints.

There is a chain around his ankle. A manacle like they have in landbound prisons. Slaver ships. He moves his leg, there is just enough room in the chain to stretch it out in front of him when his back is braced against the wall. The manacle rides high, chafes against the flesh of his shin.

Jesse looks around. His eyes have begun to adjust somewhat. He can make out bars five feet or so in from of him. He cannot tell from here if they are iron or steel or what. He sweeps the room again.

And this time he sees him.

Genji.

Folded in on himself with his head cradled between his knees. Even in dark Jesse recognizes his hair, and the slope of his shoulders.

"Genji," he hisses, moving toward the prince. The chain won't stretch, not far enough. Jesse grasps at air about a foot and half from Genji's body. "Genji," he says again slightly more roughly. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

Genji looks up. The distance and the dark don't stop Jesse from noticing how red his eyes are. His nose. Crying.

Jesse has not ever, in the two months they've had him, ever seen the prince cry. His fingers fall into his lap. Too far physically to give any comfort.

"You are alive then," Genji says. "I wasn't sure. You were so still...all that blood."

"The blood's not mine."

The blood is not his.

Oh, god. Oh God.

Jesse's stomach heaves at the sudden memory. Gabriel, his captain his friend his father the first person who ever believed in him, Gabriel is.

Dying?

Dead by now?

Jesse grips his knees. Lowers his head between them. He doesn't want to throw up, God knows how long they'll be in here, stuck in here, trapped, locked away. Genji will maybe, hopefully, be ransomed back one day. Jesse...he isn't even sure himself why they brought him along.

He reels. The pitching of the boat is suddenly too much, too dramatic.

Gabriel is dead.

Gut shot. His entire side exploded outward. Chunks of viscera under Jesse's nails even now. He turns away, starts to, tries to--but Genji is up before he can. Genji's hand slides around his. Tugs it until Jesse follows the prompting. With them both standing, they can touch, just. The one bright side.

The only.

Jesse leans his head onto Genji's shoulder and shudders. They don't have time for this sad, quiet indulgence. But Jesse can't deny it to himself. Not after the last conversation Genji and he had properly. Not after the way it ended.

"I'm glad you aren't dead," Genji says. Quietly. A murmur that is almost not there are all.

Jesse gets it. Though the words smooth over something in his gut, he tries not to feel the guilty sense of elation that he does.

Genji would rather be with him than alone. There's truly not much solace to be taken in that.

But they don't need to talk about it.

For the moment, then can just be calmed by the presence of the other.

Jesse maneuvers the two of them to sitting. The stretch is awkward, Jesse has to keep his leg out to keep the manacle from rubbing the skin from the bone of his ankle.

But they manage to find some semblance of comfort there on the hard deck of the dark ship. McCree coaxes Genji's head into his lap, pets his fingers through the prince's hair.

For a long time, Genji is quiet.

His eyes close. His breathing is even and gentle and Jesse thinks maybe, just maybe, he's asleep.

Which is good.

Jesse tips his own head back. He listens to the sounds of the sea, the slow rolling of it around them. He listens to the creaking of the wood around them.

He thinks, bitterly, of Gabe and Jack teaching him to sail. The abrasions on his hands from the ropes, abrasions that would become callouses that would become memories.

He remembers Ana. The way she would do this for him sometimes. Her rare moments of comfort giving. The way she would hum. Jesse can't really remember the song now, an export from her desert home, but he remembers the way she always sounded so sad when she'd hum it.

Bittersweet.

He tries the notes out now, what he remembers of it, but his voice falls flat in the dark.

Genji stirs in his lap, and Jesse feels guilty for trying at all. Genji's eyes stare up at him, large and brown.

"What are you doing?" Genji asks.

Jesse shrugs. He finds something else to focus on, something not the Prince's face. The bars of their cell, the wooden walls. "Didn't mean to wake you with my noise."

"You didn't. I was awake," Genji says. "It was kind of nice."

"Was it?"

Genji nods. His eyes slip close. "It was soothing," he says. "Is your crew going to rescue us?"

Jesse sighs. Gabriel collapsing in his arms. "Yeah, you highness. Of course. I'm sure they're..."

Jesse trails off.

There's a sound from beyond the bars. The clattering tell of footsteps. Jesse's sense jump into overdrive. He pushes on Genji's shoulder and Genji sits up.

The man from before steps into view. He's as put together as Jesse remembers; too clean to really be a pirate.

"So, the guests awaken. How is my royal court feeling," he says. He stays a step back from the bars, even though Jesse knows his chains won't reach that far. Precautions, precautions. The man's eyes slide over Genji and Jesse feels instantly cold all over.

"Guests," he says, a barking laugh. And then another truer one, surprised out of him by his own bravado, his own stupidity. "This guest would like to be out of his chains. That'd be some hospitality."

The man makes a face, his lips raise into a sneer. "Rudeness," he says, his eyes narrowing, "will get you nowhere. Our hospitality was not killing you, Prince of the Sea. But I will cut that fuckin' tongue out of your head if you don't sit quiet while I discuss business."

The threat means little and less. Jesse looks over at Genji. Business. Ransom? Most likely. Or worse. Genji is shaking, where his hand touches Jesse's thigh it is a trembling ball of nerves.

Jesse longs to hold it, to squeeze it and give some base reassurance, but he cannot.

"So, Genji," the man says. "I'm sure you've figured by now that we'll be...returning you to your brother."

Genji's face lights up.

Jesse can't even pretend it doesn't hurt.

But the coil of it springs more from Genji's innocence than from any real sense of betrayal.

The man chuckles. "Yes," he says, "you like that I see. Yes, yes. We're going to enjoy it to you see. So now we just...settle the matter of which finger you think you need the least."

Genji's eyebrows come together. His knees shift. "What?" He asks.

The man holds his hands up. There is no dirt under his nails, they are clipped short, but immaculately clean. His grin is visible under the fanlike spread of them. He lowers and raises each one in turn.

"Fingers," he says, "which do you think you won't need? You pick it, since you're working so well with us, and I'll send it on it's way home. And if you're brother doesn't take us seriously after that first note, we'll send a second. And then maybe an ear."

Genji has gone white.

His hands twitch, his throat works over a swallow. That same trapped animal look he'd had when Oscar had been holding him.

And Jesse can't stand to see it.

"Take it from me," he says.

Genji looks at him. The man looks at him. Jesse stands, he thrusts his arm forward. Right below his elbow is the first tattoo he ever got. The deadeye skull. It's almost as infamous as he is.

"Why piss Hanzo off, right? Sending him hacked off chunks of his brother. Send him this. Let him see you're...takin' out an enemy while...while ransoming the Prince."

The man bites his lip, contemplating. He looks between the two of them. "Huh. Nobility. How quaint. Maybe the title Prince of the Sea wasn't so far off after all."

Jesse looks down. It's not praise from this man, it's a jeering derision.

Jack had given him the nickname.

As praise.

A long, long time ago.

"Just do it," Jesse says. "You know it's a better idea."

"Offering to get yourself flayed all to keep the little princeling safe," the man says. He shakes his head. "Can't argue with stupidity I guess."

He whistles, a piercing, warbling trill.

And like magic, three men appear behind him. The captain looks at Genji, his eyes are cold and flat, shark's eyes.

"You're going to want to watch this, your Highness. As...let's say future reference."

\--

And Genji does watch.

Almost defiantly.

Jesse blacks out once, as the thin, cruel blade slices into the skin, and again when they press a burning knife against the bleeding wound. Cauterizing. Precautions.

They don't want him to die of gangrene down in the dark.

How nice of them.

Jesse comes to.

Covered in blood. His arm below the elbow is a sleeve of it. Charred skin at the wound, dried blood flaking between his finger. He rolls on his side.

The chain on his ankle clangs and clinks.

Genji, against the wall, stirs.

"You're awake," he says. It could be a question, Jesse can't quite tell. The pain has him in something like a cloud, just slightly above the scene instead of in it.

"Wh--," Jesse's voice cracks, his lips rub dry against one another.

Genji hastens to his side. He's holding a jug, ceramic, brown maybe green, impossible to tell in the dark, unimportant. Jesse forces himself to focus on Genji's face, on his moving lips.

"Not fast," Genji's lips say.

Or maybe.

"Go slow."

Or maybe.

"Thank you."

The water splashes against Jesse's lips, Genji's hands are shaking where he is trying to hold it steady. And Jesse can't help. His arm is a paralyzed ache at his side. Constant, but not screaming at the moment.

The first taste of it is cool and sweet.

Jesse opens his mouth, thrusts his tongue against the lip of the jug.

And flavor of salt hits him. He recoils, momentarily, curling inward, but his stomach cramps and rolls and Jesse is drinking again before he can regret it. It's not as salty as seawater. Just a hint of brine, to take any edge of kindness away.

"Th...thanks," Jesse says, lowering his head to the deck once he has drank his fill. Genji lays the pitcher aside and lays opposite him. Forehead to forehead, only upside down.

Jesse nuzzles his nose into Genji's hair. Base comforts.

"You didn't have to do that," Genji says.

"Yes I did."

Genji shakes his head. The chain around his ankle rattles as he moves his legs. Jesse doesn't tilt his head to watch the motion. He closes his eyes.

"I wanted to hate you," Genji says. His hands touch Jesse's hair. "In the beginning. But you've gone and made that impossible over and over."

Jesse considers the words. He's not really even sure if he is supposed to respond. If he's even supposed to be hearing this. He realizes how shallow his breathing is, how close to sleep he is drifting. The surprise is soft. Gentle like the tide.

"Do you hate me?" Genji asks.

But Jesse is already gone.

\--

They come again, days later. Maybe days. It is hard to keep track. Jesse sleeps most of the time, his gouged arm stretched before him. Genji has wrapped it, ripped strips from Jesse's shirt to wind them about the wound.

The darkness and monotony and the rations of stale bread and salted water remain the same.

But then one day Jesse wakes up and the three men (or maybe it's three new men, all as large and terrible as the first) are standing in the cell with them.

The captain is by Genji. Holding a candle and a sheet of parchment.

"Do you understand what you are to write?" he asks.

Genji looks at Jesse. His lips is between his teeth. "Hanzo will not...he doesn't know my English handwriting. I don't think."

"Then address it in Japanese, but I need to see that you've accurately conveyed the expediency that this delicate situation requires."

Jesse starts to sit up, and the men notice. Two of them turn to him. One grabs him by the hair. They drag him over. The chain protests, pulled to its limit. Jesse groans, shifts, held like a cat by the scruff of his neck. His leg held out behind him, trying to lessen the pressure.

"Stop hurting him," Genji says. "I will write what you want."

"Stop hurting him," the captain repeats. He looks over at Jesse. The man holding him shuffles, but does not drop him. "Oh my Prince..."

He shakes his head.

The hand holding the candle moves, a small sweep to the left.

The punch isn't fully unexpected, but Jesse hasn't steeled himself for it either. The fist, from the big man to his right, catches him just below the ribs. It forces the air from Jesse's lungs, doubles him over.

"If hurting him is the only way to make this urgent for you," the captain says. "Then I'm going to make it as dire as possible."

Another punch leaves Jesse gasping. His feet kick, useless. Worse than useless chained the way his one is.

And he doesn't want to fight anyway. Not really. Not when Genji is still so vulnerable. Better him and his sins to atone for this. Genji doesn't deserve the treatment.

Genji stares at him.

Flinches when the next hit lands. Jesse barely feels it. He's removed. Distant. Underwater.

Genji takes the paper when it is offered to him. Genji begins to write.

\--

Jesse wakes up.

His body is bruised. Aching. A dull complaint that gets worse when he moves. Genji is laying near him. As close as the two of them can get with the chains. Curled about each other.

Jesse's bruises scream as he sits up. His head swims, but he manages to stay conscious. The movement rouses Genji.

"How are you feeling?" Genji asks. His voice is a whisper. Jesse closes his eyes. He shrugs. Two more beatings. Two more letters.

Jesse takes a shaky breath.

"I'm fine," he lies. "You okay?"

Genji blinks up at him. Then sits. He runs his hands through his hair. "Who is Jack?"

"What?"

"Jack. In your sleep, you talk to Jack sometimes. You ask him to stop."

"Jack is dead."

"I think I knew that. It is not what I'm asking."

Jesse falls silent. He presses his hands against his abdomen, where the bruised skin is tender and trembles against the pressure.

"Gabriel and Jack were like my...like my fathers. I guess," Jesse says. "Ana and them took me in when no one else would have even looked twice at me. They let me stay on board when any sensible pirate would have tossed me to the street."

"And Hanzo killed him?"

Jesse tries to roll his shoulders but the movement sends a spike of nausea down his spine. He shakes his head instead. "It's what the crew that managed to make it back said. A public hanging. A show of it. Gabriel didn't go, he wouldn't let us, said it was a trap and Jack would never forgive him if we went."

Genji considers. Jesse can see the way the information crosses his mind. "It sounds like the council," Genji says. "Gabriel was right not to go, it would have been a trap."

"Well, we went and got you instead, sugar." Jesse cracks an eye open, gauges Genji's reaction.

There isn't terribly much to see. For a moment, Genji's frown deepens. Then he sighs. He settles closer to Jesse's body.

"Maybe it seems odd to say," Genji says, "or unfair since you are the one who is taking the brunt of so much for me right now; but it hasn't all been bad. I...part of me...a part of me has enjoyed the ship, being a part of it, for as little a time as it was."

"You know you can say you liked bein' with me, your highness."

Genji snorts. His shoulders shake. It isn't that funny. But they have had so little here that even a single bright spot seems blinding. Soon the two of them are doubled over, giggling together.

Jesse lifts his head, breaths into Genji's throat. Watches the way the skin goose pimples in the warmth.

And for the moment, somehow, he finds the strength to believe that everything will be okay.

Because he has no way of knowing how bad things are about to get.


	4. Release

Jesse is dreaming.

He is aware he is dreaming. There is something about it, like being submerged, that he recognizes. The slowness of everything.

He has even begun to dream in the other pirates. The crew of the Urchin. He shudders, recoils. Someone is holding him by the hair.

Jesse blinks, inhales.

He is awake. The pirate, rank and large and muscled, holding Jesse tightens his grip. Arm locked like iron around Jesse's middle. Other holding his hair, forcing his head at an extreme angle.

Someone is holding Genji as well. And always, above it all, leaning against the bars of the cell peeling a fig, is the Captain.

The knife flashes in the firelight.

Jesse's arm rolls with pain. Phantom memories. The skin that is bald and raw like hewn meat.

"So," the captain says. Not looking up. He turns a chunk of the fruit between his fingers, pops it in his mouth. "So," he says again.

"Wanna tell me why it is our scouts still haven't heard back from you brother, little Prince?"

Genji blinks. Struggles briefly. Jesse can see from here the straining tendons of his arms.

"I don't know," Genji says. He shakes his head. "I don't...he..."

"I mean, you aren't an heir, you aren't a statesman. Maybe...maybe we were fucking wrong about how much he wants you back. The Shrike seemed pretty confident he would want you. Otherwise why would have the kept you."

"What?"

The Captain smiles. Spins the knife. "That is why you were keeping him, was it not? Ransom. Eventually."

The man holding Jesse shakes him. It's jarring and painful and grounding. Jesse grunts, hisses. He focuses on The Captain. On the way the man is watching him.

Jesse tries to shake his head. The hand in his hair tightens so he settles for: "No. Errr don't know. Reyes'...was the one in charge of--"

The man behind him throws him to the ground. For a moment, as he falls through the air, Jesse thinks maybe his leg has finally broken from the tension. But as he crashes to the deck at Genji's feet, he realizes no, he has been freed. His leg is not tied down, no chain, no hold.

The revelation lasts a second.

Then the man who dropped him is stamping on his arm.

The skinned one.

Jesse thinks maybe he screams. But he isn't sure. Everything whites out. Everything comes to an abrupt and immediate

 

 

 

End.

 

 

 

"Wake up. Please. Please wake up. God damn you. God damn you. Wake up."

Jesse floats. Somewhere. Where everything hurts.

He takes a breath. It feels wrong. It feels off. Water in his lungs, his throat filling his mouth. Salty and horrible. He flinches. The natural reaction, the state of shock, drowning.

He is drowning.

He curls in on himself.

It is a mistake. His ribs scream. His arm screams. His body...oh dear god. His body. He moves his fingers, his brain supplies the image of them twitching, moving.

"Oh fuck," Genji says. Genji is here and Genji is dead too. "Jesse. Jesse, please."

Genji is dead and he sounds so worried. So Jesse opens his eyes. He is laying in Genji's lap, his head cradled like they have laid so many times since coming here. It's been years of it. Jesse is sure it has been years.

Genji's fingers are on his cheek. Soft. Carding into his hair. Parting the knots with gentle tugs. Genji's eyes are red, swollen. He has been crying.

Jesse breathes.

And Genji sobs.

And across the room. Tied to the bars of their cell like some grizzly token, hangs Jesse's arm. Jesse cannot look at it, for it cannot be there, for it is attached to him still. He can move the fingers. He can feel them move.

"You must stop it," Genji says. "I never asked you to be my martyr."

"Can't help it. S'what I do. I don't mind it if--"

"I mind it. You will die, Jesse McCree, my Prince of the Sea, if you keep this up. They will kill you. They will go too far and you will not wake up. And I shall have to bite through my tongue to follow after you."

"Bite through your tongue? Well that now, that would be a waste."

Jesse lifts a hand. A hand. His only. Oh holy Christ it is his only.

Genji's lips are soft and warm beneath his thumb.

"The amount of times I've imagined kissin' you, darlin'..."

He feels Genji smile against his hand. It's hard to see much of anything with his eyes half swollen shut. Genji's fingers touch his jaw.

"You must stop," Genji says again. His fingers trail down Jesse's neck, slip silent and carful over his torn tunic. They skate over the bruises of his ribs, the pulpy state of his stomach.

Maybe this is a dream.

A fevered delusion here to lead Jesse into death. Softly, sweetly.

Genji's breath against his temple. The shuffle and stutter of Genji moving. His clothes whispering against the hardwood. His hands skim Jesse's belt.

Will anyone hear over the creaking of the boat? The soft sighing of the sea. Her quiet song. And Genji, uttering those same soft sighs as his fingers slip beneath the barrier keeping them apart.

Jesse cannot see it.

But he feels, clearly, Genji's fingers, cupping him. Dragging up the length of him. 

"Can you be quiet," Genji asks, desperation lingering in the corners of his tone. "Can you not make a sound?"

"You don't gotta do this. It's not why I'm--"

"I know. I know. I know," Genji soothes. "But if we die, if you are to die, I want at least for you to have this."

It's not impossible; stupid and risky and dangerous, yes. But the guards work on rotation and Genji and Jesse are often huddled for warmth, stretched to the limits of their chains. If Genji keeps his movements small, if Jesse does not buck too hard...

But of course it is impossible.

Someone will see.

Someone will hear.

And Genji will be a target again.

Even through his aches and bruises and possibly broken ribs, Jesse is getting hard under Genji's touches. His cock reacting to the attention, the adrenaline.

Genji's hand moves around him, drags against him.

The ocean.

Jesse has always been weak to its draw. The siren song of it. Salt slick and sea air.

His hips buck, and Genji twists his wrist with the motion. His breath huffs over Jesse's cheek. The swollen, broken expanse of his nose.

"I'm sorry," Genji says, "I'm so sorry."

His hand is a tide.

Jesse orgasm is a tide.

A weak and stuttering thing, sudden, jarring, unexpected.

They are going to die here.

His come oozes over Genji's fingers, soaks into the fabric of his trousers. Slow and pulsating from him like his heart beat.

They are going to die here.

"You are selfish, Jesse McCree," Genji says. His hair touches Jesse's chin, his forehead brushes Jesse's collar.

"I know, darlin'," he says. "I know."

\---

They give Genji drugs. Some sort of liquid to pour down Jesse's throat. It tastes bitter, clogging, but Jesse takes it.

It numbs the stump of his arm, where they removed it just below the elbow.

Removed.

Such a neat word for violent, cracking, tearing sundering they put him through.

Removed.

Short and sweet and clean.

The painkillers put Jesse into an even more fugue state. He does not know how many times he eats the same slice of moldy bread. Or how many times Genji holds him and begs him not to die.

The arm that is not his begins to rot, down the dank darkness.

Like Genji's fine, expensive clothes. Worn away by sea air, leathery and shrunken.

Jesse's phantom arm itches and aches and burns. But the drugs help him forget it. And that is enough.

\--

Jesse wakes.

There is sunshine.

He stares at it for a long time. Blinded. Like a deep sea fish dragged up too quickly. The world rocks under him.

There is sunshine.

So he must be dead.

And Jack. Jack and Gabe have come to find him. Gabe's face is weather-worn. The hair at his temples is grayer. It seems unfair he should age in the afterlife.

It seems unfair Jesse should die without even saving Genji.

But life is unfair.

And now Jesse leaves it.

\--

"Kid. I see your eyes moving. You awake yet, Jesse?"

Awake?

Jesse takes a slow measured breath. He opens his eyes.

Above him is the ceiling. Familiar brown wood. Though Jesse does not know why. The cell doesn't have lighting like this, yet the sight is so familiar it tightens in his gut. Hurts him in a way nothing the Pirates have done so far has.

Jesse blinks back sudden, hot, shameful tears.

His missing arm throbs. He moves the stump, only to find that he cannot. Stiff, immobile, tied down. Jesse panics, looks down, the remainder of his arm has been strapped to his chest with soft white fabric. In soft white sheets. In a bed that is his. That his body instinctually recognizes as his own.

A hand presses against his shoulder.

Jesse follows the arm up and up to Gabriel Reyes' frowning face.

"Calm down," Gabe says. "Jesse take a breath before you hurt yourself more."

"You're dead," Jesse says. Shaking his head. He pulls back, there are more pillows behind him than usual. Keeping him propped. He looks away from the specter.

Genji is sleeping with his head in his arms; a chair pulled up to the edge of the bed. His weight barely dents the mattress.

Jesse stares at him.

For a long, long time he stares at him.

And Gabriel never leaves or evaporates or says anything more. He sits himself down in fact, in a chair next to Genji's. He settles in.

Jesse swallows. The pain is his arm, momentarily forgotten, has begun to surface again. Reaching up for him out of the dark depths, inky and unfathomable.

"So. Am I dead," Jesse says.

He looks at Gabe. Gabe licks his lips, how human, how human. Gabe tips his head.

"It's not for a lack of trying. You've been unconscious for the better part of four days. Longer than that before we...He hasn't been clear, he doesn't know how much time you were down there but..."

Jesse narrows his eyes. "Are you dead?"

"I don't fucking believe in ghosts, kid. I'm not going to very well become one just to prove myself wrong."

"But I...in my arms you..."

Gabriel stands. Stiffly. His shirt is untucked, he pulls it up further. His side is a pink, tender-looking mess. Still raw and open in some places, with bits of bandaging still wrapped in place.

"It wasn't for lack of trying on my part either. But the crew, Torb and Mako they...they did a good job. Sewed me up."

The thought of Mako with his big hands tugging a needle in delicate little stitches makes Jesse want to laugh. Insanely. The laughter washes over him like it had in that dark hold. Shrill.

Gabriel sits again. He waits is out. Only when Jesse is laying back in the bed, half-groaning, half-laughing, his breath coming from between his teeth, does Gabriel speak again.

"Would you like to know how long you were there?"

"There?"

"On the Urchin's Mercy."

Jesse closes his eyes. "Are we still not there? Do you promise me this isn't some...some fucked up dream? You're really alive?"

"Wanna stick your fingers in my side? Would that prove it to you?"

Jesse shudders. His remaining fingers twitch on the bed spread. Almost without thinking about it, he reaches for Genji's head. Pets through Genji's hair.

"Okay," Jesse says. "So how long were we there?"

"Three months."

Jesse bites his lip.

It sounds so short, quantified like that. Three months. Ninety days. Two thousand one hundred and sixty hours.

And every single one.

"I'm sorry, Jesse," Gabriel says. "I'm so, so sorry, kid."

"How did you find us?"

"Intercepted a supply ship.Had a letter addressed to Hanzo. It was dumb luck. We were looking, don't get me wrong we were looking but..."

But the sea leaves no clues.

The crew would have been in shambles, finding Gabe that way. Spending the time needed to patch him up. Directionless until he was more recovered.

"It's okay," Jesse says. What else can he say? Who can he blame here? "What happened?"

"There were instructions. For King Hanzo, should he wish to retrieve his brother. There was also...there were other things."

Jesse thinks of his skin, flayed off the arm he is now missing completely. How naïve he had been then to believe that to be such a horrible pain.

"So. We raided a royal storehouse and we set a trap. It took time. It took too long. But. Genji says he thinks it's...been about a week since." Gabriel nods toward Jesse's arm, his stump. There place where he just ends.

"A week?"

"Give or take. He's been...out of it as well. Refuses to leave your side though. He's been pretty fucking adamant about that part."

A week. Has it truly been so short a time?

Jesse feels himself teeter, his weight slumping into the pillows. The world spins and spins.

"You okay?"

"Mmnnnnhn," Jesse intones. "Gonna be sick," he says.

Like magic there is a bucket before him. He bends over and vomits. There is almost nothing to expel. Soupy, yellowish liquid.

Gabriel has the decency to look away.

He places the bucket to the side and Jesse, heaving settles back down.

Genji stirs.

He sits up.

His eyes are red rimmed. Bleary from sleep. With dark circles beneath them. He meets Jesse's gaze. He goes scarlet then pale.

Gabriel looks between the two of them. "I should let you rest," he says. "You've had...a time of it. And it's almost time for more salve."

"You do not have to go," Genji says.

"Yeah...it's." What is it? Fine? Jesse doesn't know what to do. They should be over this. All that time down in the dark should have cured them of this.

But they said things--Genji did things--under the pretense they were going to die. And Jesse isn't quite ready to face that.

Gabriel looks between the two of them again. His eyes narrow. "No," he says. "I am going to go. The two of you should. Should talk. I'm sure there's plenty you have to say."

Gabriel stands. Leans forward to squeeze Jesse's shoulder. A rare moment of affection.

Jesse looks away as he leaves the room.

Genji's fingers fiddle with the bed spread.

"I...I didn't tell him about anything," Genji says. "I swear I didn't."

"Wouldn't care if you did. Gabe's just got a way of knowing these things. And he...I mean he knows how I felt about you."

"Felt?"

"Feel."

"They killed that man. Captain Asgard."

"Was that his name?"

"It was. You didn't know?"

Jesse shrugs. "I was a little out of it, if you didn't notice."

Genji looks down at his hands. He is not so different than the boy in the hold of the Shrike. He is not so changed and yet. He is. Something about his shoulders, and the way the lines around his eyes tighten.

"Wanna tell me how it happened?"

"You should rest..."

Jesse reaches out his hand. He covers Genji's, squeezes the fingers. "That bastard cut off my fucking arm, you highness. Tell me how it happened."

Genji takes a breath. His eyes scan over Jesse's face. He is biting his lip. Oh those teeth, so sharp, so white, so sweet.

"Okay.

"So they hadn't come down for a while. It wasn't...easy keeping track of time down there but I had a...A system sort of. They missed a meal. You were. Delirious? Fevered. And then...all of the sudden they were there.

"Asgard and the crew. Some men of the crew. They looked...scared I guess. Even Asgard. He was shaking and drunk I think. He smelled thick. And they. They came in and they hauled you out of the cell. And I was yelling and clawing at them and.

"And one of them hit me." Genji tilts his head to the left. His jaw is shadowed by a bruise, purple still. Ugly. "It's not like I've never been hit before but it. It shocked me. They had been so careful and I. I just knew. They were gonna kill us because. Because someone was here for us. And then I listened and I could hear the cannonfire. And the shouts.

"I guess they thought they could outrun the Shrike. They waited too long to come down and deal with us."

"Why take us out of the cell at all? Why not kill us there?"

"I don't know. Maybe they thought seeing you die would kill morale. Or maybe they were going to return you in hope of leniency. I didn't ask. One of the men unlocked the chains and they. Grabbed me by the arms and dragged me with them.

"But by then it was far too late.

"Fawkes was already on the stairs. And the man carrying me dropped me. I hit my head. But then someone was grabbing my arm and pulling me up and it was Gabriel. Captain Gabriel. And he...he didn't ask if I was okay he just kind of shoved me toward Winston who.

"I got carried a lot," Genji says, frowning. "I kept asking about you, yelling for you but. I don't think anyone really heard me over the shouting. Eventually it was just Asgard and a few crew members left. They lined them up on the deck."

"Did they surrender?"

"They did. And Gabe told them he didn't want their fucking surrender. He slit their throats. Every single one of them. Then Fareeha and Fawkes torched the ship."

Jesse closes his eyes. "Good," he says. "Justice served."

"That's what Fareeha said too. She's been here a couple of times. She says that...that Ana can't have you. I don't know what she means by that."

Jesse smiles. "It's her way of telling me I'm not allowed to die."

"You didn't die."

"I guess not. You're to thank for that."

Genji looks away, sharply. "I'm not. I...I was the reason we were in that mess at all. It should have. It should be me, laying here...mutilated."

"It's an arm. I got two. And we got one of the greatest minds on the sea here on this boat. One of the greatest in the world if I ain't bein' modest. He'll fix me up with something, you'll see."

Jesse does not feel the optimism he manages to convey. He grins at Genji, but it feels hollow in a way. Abstract.

"You should get some sleep," Genji says. "I'll wake you when it's time to get your medicine."

"I been sleepin' for a week, your highness. No offense but...you're the one looks like you're ready to keel over. Them bags under your eyes get any heavier and you're gonna fall flat on your face."

Genji's eyebrows raise. His hand moves, brushes under his eye, like he can remove the dark circles with his fingers. He half-smiles. His shoulders sag.

"Maybe you're right," he says. "I haven't gotten much rest, I guess."

"There's room up here for two."

"I don't want to crowd you. You slept on the couch often, it cannot be that uncomfortable."

Jesse pats the bed, more firmly. "Believe me, your highness, the bed is much comfier."

"Would you stop calling me that?"

"Callin' you what?"

"Your highness. It's...I know I told you to. But I...I think we've been through enough now that. That I..."

"All right then. Genji. I'd like it if you'd sleep here. Where I can keep an eye on you."

Genji sighs. He rolls his eyes. Slowly, he stands. He fits nicely in the seam of Jesse's body, right on the crook of his remaining arm.

Genji lies with his back to Jesse. His fingers gripping Jesse's hand beneath his head. It doesn't take long for him to fall asleep, despite his misgivings.

It doesn't take long for Jesse to follow.

\--

His sleep is dreamless and white.

\--

"An island?" Jesse asks, leaning on the railing. Heavy. If he were to fall overboard he would sink to the sea floor in a breath.

His first time on deck in three weeks.

The sun seems to scour his skin. Burn away the filth still clinging to him from that prison hold. Jesse closes his eyes and tilts his face up. When he opens them, the island is closer.

"Captain Gabriel won't tell me why," Genji says. "But he said we'll be there for a night at least."

"Resupplying maybe," Jesse says. "Resting. Think it'll be nice to be on land again?"

Genji looks down. "I can't really imagine being on land again. It's been..."

"Far too long," Jesse finishes for him. "I think it'll be good. For all of us."

\--

The drop anchor just before sunset.

Genji is in the first of the crew to disembark. He complains as he goes, shaking his head as Mako and Junkrat heard him onto the boat. But Jesse stands firm on the matter. He's not quite ready for Genji to watch him struggle to leave the ship.

One-armed, the climb down to the dingy is going to be hell. Jesse is not even sure himself if he will make it.

Fareeha goes with Genji, grinning at the prince as he fights. It is her presence that finally gets him to settle.

She presses a kiss to Jesse's cheek, just before she goes over the side. Her hand on his throat, her lips are dry.

"I'm so happy you're alive," she whispers to him. Her fingers curl in his beard, just under his ear. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

Their fragile family unit cannot afford another loss.

Jesse touches her wrist. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. She slips from his fingers, zips down the ropes and into the waiting craft.

Genji looks up at him from it.

Jesse waves as they begin to row off.

And then the boat returns.

And it is his turn to board it.

"There's no shame, asking for help with it," Gabriel says. Standing beside Jesse as other crew members clamber over the side. "No one would judge you for it."

"No," Jesse says. "Maybe not. But. But I have to do it myself."

In the month since he has lost it, the wound of his stump is healing. It still aches; the missing part below the elbow still itches and there are times Jesse could swear he still feels it. But it is no longer agony. It hangs at his side now, not taped up against his chest. Torb has begun to fit him for a replacement, as Jesse had known he would.

But it won't be ready for some time.

Jesse walks to the railing. He looks down into the boat.

Across the bay where they are anchored he can see the far off forms of the crew on the beach, moving around out there. Anonymous from this distance, specks of color and not much more.

He pulls himself sitting up onto the railing.

Below him the sea moves in gentle waves. The boat, his destination, rises and falls slightly with her breathing. Jesse turns, just a little clumsy, grips the rope with his arm as he finds footholds.

His stump he keeps folded against his chest.

The descent makes him lightheaded. The muscles of his upper arm aches every time he thrusts his weight upon it. But he manages to maintain his balance during the climb.

He does not fall.

He does not faint.

His feet scrape the wood of the dingy. And only then does he allow himself to collapse. He closes his eyes as the others row them to the shore. No one shames him for not helping. It's not a good feeling, but isn't as bad as Jesse was expecting either.

\--

Nightfalls.

Junkrat builds a fire. Larger than is maybe safe considering that they are a crew of pirates still in possession of ransomed royalty. But none of them are thinking about that right now.

Winston breaks out the rum. Casks of it. The crew settles on the beach. Some move further out and build their own little fires. Jesse settles himself with his back braced against a piece of driftwood. Gabriel sits to his right, his knee brushing Jesse's shoulder, using the driftwood like a bench.

Quiet intimacy.

The cracking fire.

The burn and bite of the rum.

Genji sits to Jesse's left, settled into the sand with his eyes closed. He cracks them open when Jesse passes him a bottle. He licks his lips then takes a long, long drink. His throat bobs with each swallow. Endless.

Jesse looks away when Genji lowers the bottle, coughing thick and wet into his fist.

The fire pops and roars and the glow of it makes Genji's eyes golden. And Jesse doesn't know where they stand anymore. What they have become. Jesse takes the bottle back when Genji holds it out for him.

He has to reach across his body to do it.

Little reminders.

And then, in the dark, over the sound of the sea behind them and the fire raises a voice:

Safe and sound at home again, let the waters roar, Jack  
Safe and sound at home again, let the waters roar, Jack

Genji's eyes flicker to looking across the flames instead of staring at Jesse's face. Jesse recognizes the song, Fareeha's clear, bright mezzo.

She sings the chorus and when she does a few other voices pick up with hers. There at the end.

"Wha--"

"Shh," Jesse says, leaning over to whisper in Genji's ear. The balance is precarious with only one arm, Jesse moves his legs to scoot a little closer. "Just listen."

Long we've tossed on the rolling main, now we're safe ashore, Jack

She sings again, repeating, encouraging the other voices to join. And join they do.

Echoing over the beach and the rocks and the dark sea.

Genji looks around. His chest rises and falls as he breaths, the hollow of his throat flutters. Jesse moves closer again. The rum in his belly has warmed him, sits heavy and thick right at the base of his spine.

Genji blinks. Jumps a little. So close together now. Jesse's stump brushes Genji's forearm and carefully, slowly, Genji tips into the touch. His head comes to rest on Jesse's collar, his arm slips behind Jesse's back. He reaches across Jesse's body to grab the bottle of rum; he drinks from it quickly. The bottle is almost killed anyway.

No one is watching them.

But the best of friends must part, fair or foul the weather

Fareeha sings, dreamlike. Genji's lips are moist in the dark, a sheen on them. Jesse realizes, belatedly, that he is tipsy. The thought warms up his spine, settles in his throat. He presses his forehead against Genji's temple and Genji does not pull away.

\--

Genji does not pull away.

\--

They stumble into his quarters. The room spins, alcohol and adrenaline. Jesse cannot feel his missing arm and it does not matter. He falls back on the bed, Genji lands astride him. His knees on either side of Jesse's hips.

He stretches like a cat, spine arching. Rubbing himself against Jesse's crotch.

They are drunk, but not too drunk. Jesse groans, shifts his hips. His cock grinds against Genji's ass and the friction, even through their clothes is so, so good.

Genji drags Jesse's hand to his face. He kisses the palm. Each of the fingers. The last is the pointer. He slips it between his lips, laves at it with his tongue.

Filthy promises.

The gentle catch of his teeth.

Jesse rubs his thumb under Genji's lips, along the sharp jut of his chin. He surges upward and pulls Genji into a kiss.

A proper kiss.

Tongues and teeth and lips. Genji huffs against his mouth, and his breath is warm and spicy with the taste of rum. His body moves in a wave, humping against Jesse's stomach.

"Clothes," Genji says. Jesse won't call it a whine, they have been through too much for that. "Take them off. Wanna touch you, Jesse. Need to."

"You sure? I don't. If you...I don't know if I can stop if you...I'm drunk and you are. Maybe we should just--"

"Shut up," Genji hisses. His hands grip Jesse's hair. "I have waited too long." He sits up, pulling at his own clothes (another of Jesse's pilfered shirts, new one, the old one is at the bottom of the Sea). The shirt comes over his head. The pants he gets over a hip before Jesse's hand stops him.

"Okay," Jesse breathes, soothing. Petting the soft skin right at the top of Genji's thigh. "Okay," he says. "Okay. Okay. Sit up for me, darlin'."

Genji does. Jesse helps him to slide the trousers down and away.

Genji's body is beautiful.

It's not like Jesse didn't know that, but he has never faced it so plainly before. Genji writhes in his lap, his nipples peaked and silver-pink in the moonlight. His cock is rosy and hard and curving from his smooth, sparsely haired crotch.

Jesse presses his fingers against Genji's abdomen. Right above the swell of his cock. He chuckles at the way Genji moves against him, trying to get Jesse's hand on him. Impatient little flexes of his hips.

"Stop teasing," Genji says. "I want you naked. I need you to..." Genji trails off. He slips from Jesse's lap and crosses the bed to the chest Jesse keeps at the foot. Slightly floppy. Most definitely still drunk.

While he goes, Jesse takes off his own shirt. Strips away his own trousers.

When Genji turns back, he pauses. He's holding a bottle of oil in one hand. His eyes linger on Jesse's torso. The purple and green bruises in the skin. They don't even hurt anymore. Jesse was just lucky nothing was actually broken.

Genji swallows, visible.

He moves closer. His breath stirs the hair on Jesse's chest. His fingers stroke the skin at the back of Jesse's knee.

"I want you to fuck me," Genji says. He does not say 'I'm sorry' and it's better that way.

"I don't know if that's a great idea."

"I want to feel you, Prince of the Sea. If I can't hate you then I...then this is what I want."

Jesse shakes his head, grips the back of Genji's head to bring their lips together in another heated kiss. "I get that but I--it's not as simple as all that. I don't want to hurt you and..."

Genji swallows again. He giggles, sighs. His cock drags against Jesse's hip. "We're hopeless," he says.

"We're drunk. Straddle me again, Genji, we can make something work."

The Prince's eyes flash. But he obeys. Their cocks rut up together and Genji sighs again. Deeper this time, from the center of his chest. Jesse holds the two of them together. His hand is almost big enough to envelop them both.

Shyly, Genji adds his own hand to the other side. His nails scratch at Jesse's knuckles and Jesse begins to fuck into between their fists. Skin dragging against the sensitive skin of Genji's dick.

He keeps his movements measured. His sides and his arm ache distantly. It just makes Jesse hold all the tighter, grit his teeth and make that echoed into something like pleasure as well.

Above him, Genji is hazy-eyed. He moves in a slow counter time to Jesse's pace. His cock twitches between them.

Later Jesse will spend time studying it. Making Genji moan and writhe all while denying him that sweet release. But, for now, their immediate pleasure is too close, too cruel for teasing.

Jesse twists his hand. Sits up to nip at the sweat-shiny skin of Genji's throat. Runs his teeth down Genji's neck, along his collar bones.

The stimulation must be enough.

Genji's slow thrusts hitch, he pushes deep into their linked hands and comes all over Jesse's cock and their palms. His body shudders, aftershocks. Jesse kisses his shoulders, his heaving chest, his jaw.

"Sorry," Genji says. Leaning down, melting into Jesse's lap. "I wanted you to...I was not supposed to..."

"Don't worry," Jesse says. "Want me to finish myself off?"

"I can. I...I want to."

"I got that part."

Genji looks up at him. "This is not an apology," he says.

"I know that too."

"Okay." Genji's fingers slip around him. Same way they had down in that cell.

Maybe that was a dream.

A prophecy.

Jesse still is not sure.

It doesn't take long anyway. Jesse stays more atop his orgasm this time. He shakes and moans as he comes, but he does not white out and that's good.

He tugs on Genji's arm, not bothering to try and wipe either of them down. In the morning it will be disgusting. But that is for the morning, when they are hung over. Jesse turns them so he spooned against Genji's back.

His missing arm, what is left of it, rests against Genji's ribs.

And Genji does not pull away from the touch of it.

\--

"We're what?" Jesse asks.

"I don't want to do that," Genji says at the exact same time.

Gabriel looks at the two of them. He sighs. The sun is high in the sky, too warm still against Jesse's skin.

"We can't keep you here any longer, your highness," Gabriel says. "It would. The risk to my crew and to you is too great. Surely you've realized there will be others. More pirates like the Urchins."

Genji frowns. "So we fight them and we kill them. I do not want to leave. I...I have found a home here."

"And that's real touching and all but..."

Gabriel looks beyond them, out to the sea. The island they had rested on the night before is a gem in the water, just far enough away it seems to shimmer.

And there, just beyond the tip of it, sails.

The colors of the Royal Navy. The entwined dragons of her crest.

"No," Genji says. Shaking his head. He clutches at Jesse's coat. His muscles are trembling. "I won't go."

Gabriel crosses his arms. He looks to the ships in the distance again. "You got maybe two hours to make peace with it, your highness. We aren't running from them now that we called them here."

\--

Two hours is not so long a time.

Is no time at all.

Jesse holds Genji's hand as the lead ship pulls even with them. Uniformed officers. Plumes and stripes and dignity.

As much as Jesse does not want to lose Genji, he can see how this is the best option. Safer. Jesse will not always be there to take the blows. Eventually Jesse will run of flesh to sacrifice. A plank is extended. Fareeha and Junkrat get it situated so that royal officers may board the Shrike.

Royal officers.

And behind them.

"Hanzo," Genji breathes. His fingers flinch in Jesse's grip. And then he is throwing himself forward. Past the guards. His arms hook around Hanzo's neck, his weight almost tips the two of them into the sea.

Jesse does not feel hurt.

It is better this way.

He has never seen the new king up close. Hardly new, perhaps, his rule has lasted almost a year so far. The resemblance to Genji is abstract but not hard to find. Their cheekbones, the color of their eyes. Genji's nose is thinner, but the distance to their lips are the same.

Hanzo hugs his brother back.

The officers of the navy and the crew of pirates all look away. Except for Jesse. He watches the moment like something stolen.

Genji is crying.

"I didn't think you would come for me," Genji says. "Brother, I...I wasn't expecting to see you."

For a moment Hanzo is silent. His hand strokes Genji's hair. Rings on his fingers, fine silks. "Of course I would come for you, my dearest brother. I--" he looks around. Seems to remember where they are.

The transition from brother to king is seamless.

Hanzo clears his throat. He stands up straighter. His hands on Genji's shoulders steer Genji slightly to the side.

"Where is the King of the Sea?" he asks.

Gabriel steps forward. Hanzo's gaze flicks over him. His eyes are dark, unreadable.

"So. The man who kidnapped my brother dares ask for reward for returning him," Hanzo says. His voice is vague. As unreadable as his gaze.

Genji frowns. He steps back, out of Hanzo's grip.

"That's not fair, Hanzo. He treated me well, more than we--"

"When I speak to you, brother, you will know. I am addressing the Captain." Hanzo looks over the pirates. His eyes land on Jesse. On Jesse's missing arm.

"And the Prince," he says. Mildly. "Are you the one they took with him?"

"I am."

Hanzo takes a breath. "You have my thanks then, I see that you...there are doctors, in Hanamura and I extend a pardon, temporary at least to seek their services if you would wish."

The offer surprises Jesse. It surprises Genji too if the look on his face tells anything. His eyebrows raised, mouth open just a little bit.

"I...that's uhh. Generous, your Highness. I...uhh."

"The council brother," Genji says. "Have they agreed to a pardon?"

"I am the king. He was defending you. Such...bravery deserves thanks. Regardless of what the council may say." Hanzo looks to the men of his Navy. "Take my brother to the ship," he says, "and I will finish the rest of these negotiations."

An officer steps forward, his arm circles Genji's elbow.

It is better this way.

Genji takes a breath.

"No!" He pulls away, backs away from the officer and back toward the pirates. "I have decided to stay, Hanzo. I...these men have done everything in their power to accommodate me. And I...I finally feel alive, Hanzo, renewed with something. Like I am making a difference."

Hanzo stares at him.

Jesse expects the anger, the flashing, sizzling heat of it. Instead Hanzo frowns. He tips his head.

"Genji," he says. He sounds like a brother again, exasperated, maybe a little tired. "We can...discuss this further when we have--"

"Hanzo," Genji says firmly. "I'm staying. I..." Genji's hand finds Jesse's. His fingers are cool, they squeeze once. "I have found something more than the Regency has ever given me."

"Are they even willing to keep you? Knowing its dangers. They are pirates, Genji, and perhaps their actions have shown that they are not completely hard-hearted but..."

"We would have him aboard, gladly," Jesse says. Before he can stop himself.

"He's more useful with a knot than half this lot anyway," Fareeha says.

"And the Captain?"

Gabriel pinches the bridge of his nose. His eyes, when they land on Jesse's are as exasperated as Hanzo sounds. "I wouldn't risk mutiny over turning him away," Gabriel says.

Hanzo takes the information, stone-faced. He seems to process it.

"Your reward," he says, looking at Gabriel, "was going to be the location of the Resurrection Stone."

Gabriel's expression only flinches the slightest. His eyes fall to the deck and back. For a man as stoic as Gabriel, it speaks volumes.

"But since my brother is stubborn and will not leave a course once he has set his mind to it and because you will not turn him out, I am afraid I cannot share its location with you." 

Jesse watches Gabriel.

The man does not break his stare again.

The Resurrection Stone. To bring back the dead. A treasure Gabriel has searched for for years. Jesse cannot believe it. And yet...

"However," Hanzo says. "I believe we can still benefit one another. My brother will not leave, so be it. You accept him in crew, so be it. But you will also be accepting me."

"What?"

"Was I not clear? Did I perhaps speak wrong? I will be accompanying you, well more specifically, my brother. Since he refuses to leave this ship of fools to its adventure. I will take us to the Stone. A fair trade still, is it not?"

Jesse looks to Genji, Genji's open expression of shock. Gabriel also looks slightly taken aback. His arms have dropped to his sides.

"And you'll take us to the Stone?"

"Not exactly an easy trip, the journey. But yes. I will. And I will keep my brother safe."

"Hanzo, you...the Council?"

"Will appreciate my absence I am sure."

"And the Kingdom?"

"Will not suffer without me. An adventure, brother, with the people who have made you so welcome. Surly they will extend the same kindnesses to me."

An adventure.

Jesse had thought them over adventures.

But here a new one, possibly their biggest, is about to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the end is here (or is it :3)! This project has been a doozy! But it has been so much fun I couldn't ask for anything more!!!
> 
> If you're interested in a commission please please please check out my post here: http://vrunkas.tumblr.com/post/161351375627/commissions


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